Richard Johnstone

Philosopher, critic and contrarian George Santayana died 50 years ago.
Many of his words still ring hauntingly true, though, such as “Those
who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” In a world
more roiled by political, religious and ethnic turmoil than at any time
since World War II, Santayana’s words echo down through the decades as
wise words to follow.

The upheaval in the Middle East, the simmering war between Pakistan and
India, our War on Terror past, present, and yet to come ... all are complex,
the outcome of each has the potential for great progress or for cataclysm,
and all will be protracted, a part of our lives for years, or decades, to
come. With all these current events as jittery backdrop, it seems to me that
we in the U.S. need to do as much as
humanly and fiscally possible — and certainly more than we’ve been doing
— to wean ourselves off Middle Eastern oil. And by wean, I mean
crafting a carefully thought-out plan driven by a sense of urgency, then
following the plan through until we have completely eliminated our purchases
of oil from that most politically sensitive and confounding part of the
globe.

All of us older than 40 remember at least hazily the oil crises of 1973
and ’79, in which embargoes sent oil prices soaring and gas lines
extending around city blocks and down country roads. Recent headlines should
therefore give us pause. Iraq temporarily cut off its oil exports to us a
few weeks ago, and Iran and Libya threatened to do so. With events as tumultuous and as fluid as they are in the Middle East
— with horror replaced by flickering hope replaced by horror seemingly
being the daily mantra of news reporters and politicians — a look back at those two ’70s crises could help us forestall a future
one.

Part of the solution, of course, is to rely even more on sources of oil
from other parts of the world — Mexico, South America, and Russia, for
instance. Another is to explore for additional sources of domestic oil
supply, an issue members of Congress are wrestling with now. Yet another is
to increase the fuel efficiency of our gas-powered vehicles. All of these
are but temporary solutions, though, bridges
to carry us toward an exciting solution that may lie only a decade or two in
the future: cars powered by fuel cells.

Almost a dozen automakers — including such giants as Ford, General
Motors, Daimler-Chrysler, Hyundai, Toyota, Honda and Volkswagen — are
researching and in most cases developing vehicles that will run on
hydrogen-powered fuel cells. Such vehicles not only would produce very little in the way of emissions, but the fuel
source — hydrogen — is the simplest and lightest of the elements, a
colorless, odorless gas that can be
manufactured domestically. Are there obstacles? You bet, not least of
which is the cost. Toyota says it will be the first major automaker to offer
a fuel-cell car, when it puts its FCHV-4 model (which, we’ve read, will
have a body style similar to Toyota’s Highlander SUV) on the market in
Tokyo in the summer of ’03. Its sticker price will reportedly be 10
million yen (that’s $75,000 to you and me. Ouch.).

Yet, as with any emerging technology, unit prices will drop as consumer
demand rises and mass manufacturing begins. When you consider that personal
computers went from research lab to virtually every desktop in under 20
years, is it fanciful to think that a fuel-cell automobile could
make the leap from great idea to garage in the same amount of time,
perhaps even less?

And for those of us who remember 1973 and ’79 all too well, it would be
folly indeed to ignore the lessons those two crises hold. A third oil
embargo would be no charm; even less charming would be if we did not try our
best to thwart it.

And if (or, we hope, when)
we are able to wean ourselves off Persian Gulf oil, our
nation and our President will be in a much stronger position to address any
problems that may arise in the Middle East. Eliminating our need for
what lies under
the ground in the Middle East will surely strengthen our ability to
help solve the vexing and very complicated problems that lie above
the ground there.